WDTN: Wright State University housing staff explains move-in, living changes due to COVID-19

Excerpt

With school starting next week and the coronavirus pandemic in full swing, students will have to take some extra steps to stay healthy when moving onto campus this year.

Director of Residence Life and Housing at Wright State University, Dan Bertsos, said his office is ready to help students with that process, but added, this year will look a lot a different from what students typically see in the fall.

“We’re going to be doing everything we can to keep students safe. And that safety process, unfortunately, includes no golf carts, many, many, many fewer volunteers to reduce the face-to-face contact, a touchless check-in process where they’ll receive a Wright start kit.”

The kit includes items like hand sanitizer, a key fob door-opening tool, and masks that students and parents are expected use during move-in. Bertsos said because of the pandemic and the need for social distancing, the number of students living on campus will look different as well, with the university accommodating less than half the amount of students they’d see in a normal fall semester.

“They’ll move into a single room where in the past that would have been in a shared room, a double or triple,” Bertsos explained.

Bertsos said the university is asking students to take safety measures that will prevent the spread of the virus as well, by limiting casual gatherings to no more than four people, and disinfecting personal spaces on a frequent basis. But if a student does have symptoms, he said, they’re expected to immediately notify the school and get a test. The Office of Housing, he said, will step in to help with the rest.

“If [a test] comes back positive, we’re going to quarantine them in a campus apartment that we have pre-staged with fluids, some food and what have you. We’re working with our dining services, to be able to provide food for those students in those apartments, unless they bring some with them.”

Bertsos added, upon move-in, students should prepare a ‘go bag’ full of essentials in case they are required to quarantine. He says the university is also asking parents to be cautious and timely when moving their children into campus housing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

For more information about Wright State’s move-in plans, click here.

View the video and original story at wdtn.com